Rose Parade
The Rose Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses Parade, is an annual parade held mostly along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, United States, on New Year's Day.
Produced by the non-profit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, the parade usually starts at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and includes flower-covered floats, marching bands, and equestrian units. The parade is followed in the afternoon by the Rose Bowl, one of the major bowl games in college football. It has been uninterrupted except during World War II in 1942, 1943, and 1945, and in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
First held on January 1, 1890, the Rose Parade is watched by hundreds of thousands of spectators. The Rose Bowl college football game was added in 1902 to help fund the cost of staging the parade. Since 2011, Honda has been a presenting sponsor of the Rose Parade. Accordingly, the company has the parade's first float, which like all floats, follows the parade's theme.
History
Members of Pasadena's Valley Hunt Club first staged the parade in 1890. Since then the parade has been held in Pasadena every New Year's Day, except when January 1 falls on a Sunday. In that case, it is held on the subsequent Monday, January 2. This exception was instituted in 1893, as organizers did not wish to disturb horses hitched outside Sunday church services.Many of the members of the Valley Hunt Club were former residents of the American East and Midwest. They wished to showcase their new California home's mild winter weather. At a club meeting, Professor Charles F. Holder announced, "In New York, people are buried in the snow. Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let's hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise."
Over the next few founding years, the parade added marching bands and motorized floats. By 1895, the event was too large for the Valley Hunt Club to handle, resulting in the formation of an ad hoc non-profit organization – the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association. By the 11th annual tournament, the town lot on which the activities were held was renamed Tournament Park, a large open area directly adjacent to Pasadena's world-famous institution of higher learning, Caltech. Activities soon included ostrich races, bronco busting demonstrations, and an odd novelty race between a camel and an elephant. Soon reviewing stands were built along the parade route and newspapers in Eastern Seaboard cities started to take notice of the event.
The stately Italian Renaissance-style mansion of William Wrigley Jr. was offered to the city of Pasadena after Mrs. Wrigley's death in 1958, under the condition that their home would be the Rose Parade's permanent headquarters. Tournament House is the name given to the former home where the organization is headquartered.
The first associated football game was played on January 1, 1902. Originally titled the "Tournament East-West football game," it is considered to be the first Rose Bowl. The next game was not played until New Year's Day 1916; they have been played annually since then. The game derives its modern name from Rose Bowl Stadium, which was built for the 1923 game.
In 2002 and 2006, the "Granddaddy of 'em all" was not held the same day as the parade; the 2002 game was played on January 3, the 2006 game was played on January 4. Not all fans were pleased with the change; some thought the atmosphere and tradition of the Rose Bowl was lost. Once the BCS title game was separated from the host bowl, it no longer affected the date of the Rose Bowl Game.
Since the mid-1990s, a flyover by the Northrop B-2 Spirit signals the start of the parade preceded by a musical performance. Since 2019, the parade concludes with a special guest doing the ceremonial forward pass from the parade to the Rose Bowl followed by a prerecorded video message by an athlete or special guest and a musical performance.
On July 15, 2020, it was announced that the Rose Parade for 2021 would be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it was assessed under current conditions that the construction of floats for the parade could not be performed in a safe manner, while the event itself was also considered to be at a high risk of causing more instances of COVID-19 infections. The parade was deferred to 2022. However, the parade number was still changed; what would have been called the 132nd parade officially became the 133rd parade.
On November 13, 2020, it was announced that a TV special titled The Rose Parade's New Year's Celebration would take the parade's place and premiere on January 1, 2021.
Description
The Tournament of Roses Parade has followed the same route mainly following Colorado Boulevard for many decades. The day before the parade, the entire environs of the neighborhood streets south of the intersection of Orange Grove Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard are sealed off and reserved for the marshaling of the dozens of floats, bands, equestrian units, and other elements. This sealed-off section acts as the "Formation Area", and the Formation Area Committee manages it.On parade morning the various elements are merged and dispatched in front of Tournament House. The parade starts heading north on South Orange Grove Boulevard beginning at Green Street. At Colorado Boulevard it passes the main grandstands and proceeds east on Colorado Boulevard. The parade then turns north on Sierra Madre Boulevard. The floats then must travel under the Sierra Madre Boulevard/I-210 freeway overpass, requiring over-height floats to reduce their height. The parade ends at Paloma Street near Victory Park and Pasadena High School.
Recent parades
The 2009 parade featured 46 floats, including some new entries, such as Jack in the Box's Jack-O-Licious, City of Mission Viejo's Making a Splash, RFD-TV's Hee Haw, and the City of Roseville's Entertaining Dreams for a Century.The 2010 parade saluted the men and women serving America throughout the world with a flyover at the beginning of the parade by four F/A-18 jets.
New floats that joined the 2011 Rose Parade were: Beverly Hills Tournament of Roses Committee, Cunard Line, Dole, Los Angeles County Firemen's Benefit & Welfare: Never Forget 9/11 "Remember, Reflect, Renew", UNO 40th Anniversary, "Messina Wildlife Management", Namco Bandai Games, "Quikrete" Cement & Concrete Products, "Saving America's Mustangs Foundation", and Shriner's Hospitals For Children.
The 2012 Rose Parade had 43 floats, 21 bands, and 18 equestrian units with approximately 400 horses.
The honor for being the last units in the parade went to All American Cowgirl Chicks, Needham Broughton High School, and RFD-TV. It also featured the first-ever Swedish entry, the Royal Swedish Navy Cadet Band.
The 2013 parade featured 42 floats, 23 marching bands, and 21 equestrian units. New for the 2013 Rose Parade were floats from Nurses' float "A Healing Place", Delta Sigma Theta, and the city of San Gabriel centennial float "Celebrating Our Journey". It began with the Wells Fargo/Opening Unit, American Honda's float, the United States Marine Corps's Mounted Color Guard and the U.S. Marine Corps West Coast Composite Band.
Farmers Insurance's "Love Float" featured the wedding of a Virginia couple, Nicole and Gerald of Chesapeake, VA. The couple was selected through a first-ever public vote by the American people. The parade's closing unit featured Coco Jones of the Disney Channel.
Featured in the 2014 parade were 45 floats, including new floats from eHarmony, K9s4COPS, Public Storage and SeaWorld. Actor, director, writer, producer Garry Marshall played the role of "director" on Burbank's "Lights...camera...action!" float. KC and the Sunshine Band were featured on Stella Rosa Wine's "Stellabrate Good Times" float. Performing on the e-Harmony float was Natalie Cole, singing "This Will Be". NBC's The Voice joined this parade too, along with Daryl Hall and the Harlem Globetrotters. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation float featured a wedding of a California couple, Aubrey Loots and Danny Leclair; some people called for a boycott of the parade as the couple are actually both men. Nancy O'Dell, along with Jonathan and Drew Scott co-hosted the parade.
The 2015 parade had 41 floats. New participants were ABC's The Bachelor, American Armenian Rose Float Association, Kiehl's Since 1851, Northwestern Mutual, United Sikh Mission, and Zappos.com.
The 2016 parade featured 44 floats, 19 equestrian units, and 20 marching bands. New participants were Los Angeles Lakers, City of Irvine Chamber of Commerce, South Dakota Tourism, the California Milk Advisory Board, PBS, and Union Bank. It marked the end of Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards's participation in the parade for local television station KTLA. Singpoli Group's float "Marco Polo East Meets West", constructed by float builder Paradiso was judged as the sweepstakes winner, the "Most beautiful entry in the Parade with outstanding floral presentation and design."
The 2020 Rose Parade featured 40 floats, 17 equestrian units with over 450 horses, and 20 marching bands. The Co-Grand Marshals of the parade were gymnast Laurie Hernández, actress and singer Rita Moreno, and actress Gina Torres.
The 2022 parade featured 43 floats, 18 equestrian units, and 20 marching bands in addition to the special units. The grand marshal was actor LeVar Burton.
The 2023 parade's grand marshal was politician Gabby Giffords.
Floats
Originally the parade featured flower-decorated horse carriages. Over time, floats built by volunteers from sponsoring communities supplanted the carriages. Currently, most are built by professional float building companies and take nearly a year to construct. Some communities and organizational sponsors still rely on volunteers. The Valley Hunt Club still enters a flower-decorated carriage. The Cal Poly Universities Rose Float still relies solely on students who volunteer, with the present day requirement that "every inch of every float must be covered with flowers or other natural materials, such as leaves, seeds or bark". Floats are self-propelled on truck chassis in contrast to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade which uses trailer-based floats pulled by new, intact trucks.Typically 48 to 72 hours before parade day, one can view several of the floats being decorated with flowery mantles in the various 'float barns' that dot the Arroyo Seco / Rose Bowl area in West Pasadena, not far from the start of the parade. It is a rule of the parade that all surfaces of the float framework must be covered in natural materials ; furthermore, no artificial flowers or plant material are allowed, nor can the materials be artificially colored. Last-minute volunteer opportunities are usually available.
There are 6 "self-built" floats: Cal Poly Universities, City of Burbank, City of Downey, City of La Canada Flintridge, City of Sierra Madre, and City of South Pasadena. Additionally, there have been a variety of commercial float builders, who, as of 2025, include Artistic Entertainment Services and Phoenix Decorating Company. Previous professional builders include Fiesta Parade Floats, Paradiso Parade Floats, and Charisma Floats & Designs.
Anaheim city's float at the 2008 Rose Parade included the Stanley Cup that the NHL's Anaheim Ducks had won in 2007, hoisted by player Brad May. Also, the Los Angeles Dodgers had a float in celebration of the franchise's 50th anniversary in Los Angeles, with Hall of Fame sportscasters Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrin as well as former players Steve Garvey, Fernando Valenzuela, Eric Karros, and Nomar Garciaparra.
The 2010 parade floats included the Boy Scouts of America's 100th Anniversary float, the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles in celebration of Mexico's bicentennial of independence, and "Safety Harbor Kids". The 2010 parade also featured a float from Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods, which set a Guinness world record for the longest single-chassis float. The City of West Covina paid tribute to the "service and commitment of the Tuskegee Airmen" with a float entitled "Tuskegee Airmen – A Cut Above", which featured a large bald eagle, two replica World War II "Redtails" fighter planes, and historical images of some of the airmen who served our country. The float won the Mayor's trophy as the most outstanding city entry – national or international, also Anaheim float featured the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game that was played at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, four former MLB All-Stars, pitchers Mark Langston, Chuck Finley, and Troy Percival, along with second baseman Bobby Grich were aboard.
Since January 1, 2012, fell on a Sunday, tradition dictated that the parade would be held on Monday, January 2, 2012. The 2012 Rose Parade had 43 floats, featuring the Honda float featuring Grammy Award-winning musician Kenny G aboard, the LMU Centennial Celebration float, and the Girl Scouts of the USA 100th Anniversary float. Float builder Fiesta Floats donated their services to the design of the Girl Scouts float, which was decorated by the organization's volunteers. Paramount Pictures also participated in the 2012 parade with its centennial celebration float "100 Years of Movie Magic". Namco Bandai Games joined the parade for the first time, commemorating the Power Rangers. Others were Microsoft Kinect and the Kit-Cat Klock.
The 2018 Rose Parade was the last parade for the city of Los Angeles after 122 consecutive years sponsoring floats for the Rose Parade. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was aboard the float titled "Everyone is Welcome".